


Vikings Love Alder Trees

by BadHidingSpot



Series: Bradburry 2016 [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, The Hale Pack - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 05:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5899204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadHidingSpot/pseuds/BadHidingSpot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why me?”<br/>	“Why you what?” She asked not looking from her hands. She allowed herself to dangle there, shoes ready to slide from her feet.<br/>	“Why did Derek pick me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vikings Love Alder Trees

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steamcurious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steamcurious/gifts).



> Had so much trouble sticking to my prompt (Erratic) that I just said "nah screw it" and left the prompt behind. I love Berica. I wish that they had gotten more time. I wish the ENTIRE Hale pack was still around. The show has suffered for losing them.

Erica was the kind of girl who was all over the place but only when she was happy. After The Bite she was happier. Boyd had never seen her like that but then again Boyd had never really seen her before The Bite. She hadn’t seen him either, not really, just in the way everyone saw him and stayed away. “Boyd’s Table” as if he had asked to eat alone. As if he hadn’t tried to sit somewhere else and other students snatched up their trays and scattered, some of them even muttering apologies as they did so.  
Erica had her hands on one of the exposed pipes in the subway station. She was lifting herself up and down not even counting, just amazed that she could do it at all without being tired. Boyd could see her smile, her absolute joy with herself, and that’s when he chose to ask her.  
“Why me?”  
“Why you what?” She asked not looking from her hands. She allowed herself to dangle there, shoes ready to slide from her feet.  
“Why did Derek pick me?”  
“He saw something in you. He saw it in all of us.”  
“But how did he know me? How did he know you? Or Isaac? Scott wasn’t exactly prioritizing giving Derek candidates for pack. Scott barely even knew me.”  
“I knew you,” Erica said dropping to the floor with a delicate grace she hadn’t had pre-wolf.  
“You didn’t know me,” Boyd scoffed with a bitter tone he hadn’t meant to launch at Erica. Most people would have coward away from him, but maybe it was something about the way she was now, maybe it was because of being pack, that she stood her ground unaffected.  
“I knew of you,” She said simply, “I knew that you were lonely.”  
“How?”  
She shrugged. “It’s recognizable. Not just in an obvious way. Like how you didn’t have anyone to eat with at lunch.” Boyd winced. “In a secret kind of way. Something only me or Isaac could see. Or Derek. That complete,” She paused taking in a shaky breath, “that complete involuntary loneliness.”  
Boyd nodded. “Wanting to be near someone but everyone being afraid of you.”  
“I wasn’t afraid of you.”  
“You barely knew I existed.”  
“Right. So I wasn’t afraid of you.” This made Boyd laugh and as a result of that Erica smiled again. “I had my own problems,” she explained. “But I still thought of you when the time came. When Derek asked if I knew anybody. I thought ‘Vernon needs someone’.”  
“Did you really call me ‘Vernon’?”  
“Why not? I like it.”  
“It means ‘flourish alder tree’ or something. Something to do with alder trees.”  
“I like alder trees.”  
“Have you ever seen one?”  
“No,” She stuck out her tongue, “but I bet if I did I would like it.”  
“What about your name?”  
“It’s Norse I think,” she jumped onto the pipe again just to hang there at eye level with Boyd. He reached forward gently touching a lock of her curly blonde hair.  
“I can see that.”  
“ _I’m_ not Norse,” She chuckled, “my mom just liked the name. I think it was her great grandma’s name or something.”  
“Are you sure? I get a distinct viking vibe from you.” Feeling bolder now that she had let him touch one lock of hair, he took more of it into his hands and began to braid it. She let one of her hands fall to make access easier for him.  
“You’re good at that.”  
“I used to do my sister’s hair.”  
“There it is,” She said so softly Boyd knew that she must have been talking to herself.  
He asked anyway. “There what is?”  
“That loneliness.”  
Boyd dropped his hands from her hair, the braid only partly finished and stepped away from her. He meant to walk away, to go where he wasn’t sure, but she dropped herself to the floor with a loud thud and put her hand on his elbow to stop him.  
“I’m sorry,” She said, “it’s not like I asked about her. I was just calling it like I see it. I try to do that.”  
“You like to guess and manipulate,” He didn’t mean it, even though it was true. She didn’t shrink away.  
“Not to you,” She said gently, “I’d never do that to you.”  
“Why not?” He looked at her, brow furrowed in frustration and confusion. She was all over the place. “You barely know me.”  
“Because,” she said simply, “you never laughed. You probably never even saw the video.”  
“What?”  
“That goddamn video of me seizing,” She hissed looking downward. Even then he could tell she wasn’t angry with him but with the video itself. “I remember, in the hall between classes, some idiot had it on his phone and he was playing it for everyone. And he asked you if you wanted to see it and you-”  
“Told him to fuck off and kept walking. So? That’s not hero material.”  
“Everyone saw it, Boyd,” she looked at him her eyes a little teary and he could smell salt in her the way his werewolf senses knew that meant approaching tears. “Everyone _wanted_ to see it. Maybe not to be an asshole and laugh at me but to satisfy some curiosity: what does a seizure look like? But not you. But you didn't want to.”  
“Maybe I was just in a hurry.”  
“That’s what I thought then. But it would have been a good opportunity for you. You could have laughed with them about me. Maybe been invited to their table. Instead you distanced yourself a little more.”  
“It wasn’t for you,” Boyd muttered brushing the back of his hand over her cheek. “I would have done it for anyone.”  
“I know,” She said simply, “I like that about you.”  
He felt an urge to kiss her but a nervous fear gripped at him and he didn’t. He knew it would be all right if he did, he knew she probably wanted him too. But something about it felt wrong, as if the moment would be ruined for them. Instead he took the braid, which was quickly unwinding, in his hands again and finished it off.


End file.
